


Thorns and All

by Madlyie



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Era, Canonical Character Death, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Mixture of Brick and Movie and Everything else Canon, Pre-Death if that‘s a thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-15 08:11:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17525027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madlyie/pseuds/Madlyie
Summary: Grantaire didn’t understand why he was not dead yet.He had lived with the roses for several years already, since the first time Joly and Bossuet had dragged him to one of the meetings in the Café Musain and he had listened to Enjolras talk.***In a world where flowers grow from unrequited love until lungs collapse and hearts are broken, Grantaire can‘t seem to die just yet.





	Thorns and All

**Author's Note:**

>  *rises from out of nowhere and throws sad at you*  
> Yes, I am still here. Yes, I am still writing. For some reason, I wrote a sad thing. A short-ish thing. A canon era thing?? What?? Who am I??  
> I just remember somewhere catching something about hanahaki (apparently when you’re in love with someone and that love is not requited you start coughing up flower petals until you die or the love is requited I guess) and then I was like, alright this is such an aesthetic. (Maybe I should get my priorities straight. Well.)  
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy (?) this, even though this is very much out of my usual writing comfort zone.

 

 

***

 

“Are you quite alright?” Joly asked, too much worry etched into his young features. “You look pale. And you have been coughing an awful lot lately.”

Grantaire tried to smile at him. He swallowed around the weight lodged in his throat and his voice, when it came out, sounded rough. “Do not think about it too much, my friend. I just have not been sleeping too well recently. The summer has come in far too early and far too insistent this year.”

Joly didn’t look convinced and just when Grantaire was about to reassure him some more, he couldn’t supress the surging coughing fit. He was just grateful he didn’t taste blood yet.

“Maybe we should cut it down on the tobacco a bit, eh?” Grantaire rasped and before Joly could say anything else, he stood up. “Let me get something to wash it down, I will just be a moment.”

He stepped away from their table and made his way through the crowd gathered in the Corinthe, mindful of drunkenly flailing arms and stumbling legs.

It was easy to slip out of the backdoor and onto the quiet street. Just in time because he couldn’t suppress the coughing any longer once a deep breath of cold air hit his lungs and he coughed, coughed and didn’t stop coughing until he was retching and coughing up the rose falling onto the pavement.

The petals’ crisp white was marred by sprinkles of dark, blood red colour.

Grantaire spit out the rest of blood in his mouth and then carefully plucked the flower off the ground.

“Good evening, troublemaker,” he said quietly, never excepting an answer.

The flower was beautiful, still. Painfully so.

 

Roses hurt coming up.

 

As if it was not enough on the heart to love someone and not be loved in return. It might have been a different pain, the heartache, something more all-compassing and constant, like a heavy weight draped over the whole body that couldn’t be moved, always pushing down, back to the earth.

Then there was the pain like sudden stabs to the heart, at an errant smile same as at a disgusted, disapproving look.  
Grantaire had seen more of the later, fewer of the first but he almost preferred it that way because smiles were laced with treacherous, useless hope.

Hope hurt differently but he had let go of most of that a long time ago.

The roses, now.

The roses were different altogether.

More similar to the heartache, pressing down but making it hard to breathe instead of to stand up.

The disease had been discovered centuries ago, the flowers growing inside the chest nurtured by unrequited love until the patient either recovered, stopped loving or choked on it. There were stories too, that it stopped when the love was suddenly requited but Grantaire thought that those were fairy tales anyway, stories in novels, not in the real life.

In real life, he had seen people choke on dandelions and thistles piercing veins and it was the blood doing the choking. Drowning.

But the disease had been known for centuries and the operation to remove it, remove the root wrapped around the heart, spreading through the lungs, was as rare as it was dangerous. Very.

Cutting love out of the chest or cutting off the own life were equally frowned upon, to put it lightly. Only that with the first, people lived to learn the consequences. Exclusion from society, condescension. Worthlessness.

If life or love, God had given both to people on earth and letting either end on purpose was equally ungrateful, choosing to stand above the gift. Hubris.

Grantaire didn’t think God cared that much but he wouldn’t know. He didn’t make a habit of believing and God would be fine without him, most would be.

Joly however, probably wouldn’t be in that moment, if Grantaire weren’t to come back with some more wine soon.

He carefully put the rose onto the small window sill where it wasn’t in danger to be stepped onto, and, sighing, went back inside. After a small detour to the bar to get another bottle of wine, he found Joly right in the spot where Grantaire had left him, contemplating his pipe with a small frown edged onto his forehead.

Grantaire dropped down on the chair next to him suddenly feeling exhausted and tired. More than usual. “So,” he said, with a smile that he knew was not going to convince Joly of its sincerity but would also keep him from asking more question as of then. “What has happened to Bossuet, should he not have joined us a while ago?”

Joly looked at him, a few long seconds, then sighed deeply and held his hand out for the bottle of wine. Grantaire handed it over gladly if it meant he got away with silence for the time being.

 

***

 

Grantaire didn’t understand why he was not dead yet.

He had lived with the roses for several years already, since the first time Joly and Bossuet had dragged him to one of the meetings in the Café Musain and he had listened to Enjolras talk.

It sounded like a cliché, that the world suddenly seemed brighter then, like it hadn’t in a long time for Grantaire, suddenly bright, lightening. He supposed it hurt to be struck by lightening as well, hurt to look into the sun for too long.

He had coughed up the first rose petal a couple of days later and it hadn’t been a surprise.

That moment he had accepted that he was going to die because it would have been worse to stay away. Flowers needed the sunlight to stay alive and, in a way, Grantaire did too only that it was going to be the death of him as well. Ironic, somehow, and tragic, he supposed, and fascinating, how those contrasting opposites worked only hand in hand.

He didn’t stay away from the meetings and the flowers grew but didn’t kill him for years.

They hurt but then, life did too.

(Grantaire thought sometimes, in the brighter moments, that there was something left for him to do. Who knew.)

Maybe he would have considered leaving more seriously if Enjolras was someone different but then, he probably would not have found himself in that very situation.

And Enjolras, despite his obvious disapproval of seemingly everything Grantaire stood for, never send him away.

Because Enjolras was on earth living for the people, for humanity and sometimes Grantaire felt like the most human of all, wretched on earth. Still seeing good on earth was something that saints did. And Enjolras must have because he never sent him away. He sat down next to Grantaire and talked to him about the world and opinions, shared a glass or a meal and – surprisingly – thoughts. A smile on occasion, sometimes with a sigh, sometimes with supressed amusement even.

At first, Grantaire thought it was just to indulge him but he had learned over the years that Enjolras was above hate; not above burning anger but above reasonless hatred. Admirable, just another thing.

 

Enjolras sat down next to Grantaire after Marius rushed in to declare his love for a girl he saw in a park – Grantaire was sure she was lovely and hopefully able to handle Marius’s... quirks. The boy was a riot in his own right.

“Sometimes I wish Courfeyrac didn’t make friends with every soul that crosses his way,” Enjolras said and then, “I feel bad thinking that.”

Grantaire chuckled. “I think God will forgive you the momentary lapse of sympathy. Also I think Bossuet was the first to meet him, maybe you should direct your resentment at him.”

Enjolras huffed. “And you have tried being resentful towards Bossuet?”

“Touché.”

Grantaire watched the candlelight painting Enjolras’s hair golden. He looked almost soft but there were dark shadows under his eyes. It were tense times. Grantaire wasn’t ignorant to people’s suffering, the bleakness of times and the restlessness in the room. General Lamarque was ill, gravely, and Grantaire didn’t want to think about what that meant.

He wanted to sit in the half-light of the candles and look at Enjolras even though he couldn’t breathe freely and felt the vines around his heart.

If he was going to live on like that, he would do it as long as he was granted that life.

 

***

 

When Gavroche arrived with the news about Lamarque’s death, Grantaire watched Enjolras’s face turning into a grim mask of determination blinking away the tears. For once, Grantaire had to look away because he might have spent years preparing for the moment he was going to die but he had always thought it was only going to be him, just him, in a bed of roses.

Enjolras dying... Enjolras dying had never been part of those thoughts.

They started planning, or the others did while Grantaire sat and drank in a corner what felt like his weight in wine.

When he stumbled home, he closed the door and coughed up roses, more red than white.

 

***

 

Maybe he should have stayed away but Grantaire had never been good at that.

He made it through the first battle, the funeral erupting into blood and chaos. He made it by a mixture of foolish determination to help the people with a helpless cause and sheer luck.

By the end of the night, Enjolras was alive too.

There was a young girl though, who wasn‘t, whose chest had been pierced by a bullet. Grantaire didn‘t know her but thought he would have if he had gotten the chance because she laid in Marius’s arms as she died, light pink gladiolus crawling out of the bullet wound drinking up the raindrops that fell on soft, blood-streaked petals.

 

***

 

It got later and later in the night and no further attack from the National Guard came.

Enjolras had disappeared a while ago and Grantaire had been worrying ever since they had heard of Lamarque’s death but still, the feeling only got worse.

Courfeyrac was consoling a devastated Marius until the young man finally fell asleep, utterly exhausted, and then took over the watch. Combeferre looked half dead on his feet, eyes closed but only so much that they seemed to be resting somewhere between asleep and awake. Like that, it was Grantaire who got up and went to look for Enjolras.

It took him a while to find him. Finally, he saw the figure sitting in the dark on the stairs to the entrance of a house a little further down the street. The only light was coming from a window further up, Grantaire thought someone must have forgotten to blow the candles. Hopefully they would remember. They didn‘t need more fire.

He said down next to Enjolras, not planning to say anything in particular, when he noticed the flower in Enjolras’s hand.

 

A lily.

 

Enjolras was rolling the stem between his long, slender fingers.

Grantaire swallowed. “Where is this from?“

His voice sounded rough in his own ears.

Enjolras looked up at him with those wide eyes. He smiled but it didn‘t reach his eyes. With the palm of his hand that was not holding the flower, he tapped his chest.

“It‘s the first one,“ he said. Then, “The people. They‘re not coming.“

Grantaire‘s throat hurt, everything did. “What do you want me to say?“

He wasn’t going to say he told him so, he wasn’t cruel like that.

Enjolras’s hand closed around the lily, like he wanted to crush it between his fingers but he was holding back.

It was a new thing to witness; Enjolras didn’t hold back.

“That it‘s not true,“ he said. „That I got it wrong. That all is going to be well.“

“You‘ve come to the wrong person then,“ Grantaire replied. “I‘d never lie to you.“

Never tell him everything, too, but he had never lied.

Enjolras wasn’t looking at him, he was staring straight ahead into the darkness of the street and Grantaire was almost glad he did when he said, “You don‘t believe in anything.“

It sounded like he spat out the words, quiet but furious and it hurt like a slap to the face, so sudden that Grantaire recoiled, physically, moving away abruptly so his back hit the hard surface of the door behind him.

Enjolras glanced at him, a surprised frown edged onto his face.

He didn‘t know. He didn’t know how Grantaire felt.

Grantaire had always known that, had never meant to change anything about that. That moment though.

Maybe it was their literal deadline, or the quiet, or how his chest felt so full of hopelessness and vines that it didn‘t matter anymore, whether he knew or not.

 

“I believe in you,“ Grantaire said.

Enjolras looked at him for a long while and, like a thief suddenly basked in light, Grantaire’s heart was beating too fast but, for some reason, the air felt almost clear, much clearer as he breathed in. It felt Iike how he remembered fresh air to feel like.

Then Enjolras let out an almost unheard sigh. “Go to sleep, Grantaire,“ he said, exhausted and dismissive and Grantaire’s throat closed right back up with the force of what felt like a thousand vines crushing his wind pipe.

He couldn‘t speak. He nodded, mechanically and stood up, leaving Enjolras behind. He didn‘t look back, he couldn‘t. He found a quiet corner, away from the others, on the top floor of the Corinthe between to tables shoved to the wall.

He drank, then, the whole bottle that he had grabbed from downstairs hoping to wash down the flowers somehow but they wouldn’t let him, pushed up with the force of his mangled, broken heart.

Grantaire just hoped that everyone was too exhausted to be woken up by his coughing.

At some point he, too, fell asleep, head spinning, trying to breathe with roses, blood and wine stained stuffed into his pockets.

 

***

 

Grantaire woke up in the early morning and it was not because he was rattled by coughs.

He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and that up. His back hurt from sleeping on the ground.

It was quiet. Too quiet.

For a second, Grantaire thought he was too late – for what? But still, the heaviness of the roses was sitting inside his chest.

He stumbled up, eyes adjusting to the sunlight.

He saw the bodies first, the dead ones laying on the ground, only then the soldiers turned away from him. Enjolras wasn‘t.

Enjolras’s back was against the wall with the window, his west ripped and blood all over him but not his own, as it seemed.

He seemed untouched, except for his eyes. Broken but they widened when they fell on Grantaire.

He didn’t think, not even for a moment.

The soldiers were holding up their guns, ready to fire. Grantaire could have turned around then, ran for his life.

 

His life was standing backed up against a wall, beautiful but broken. About to end.

 

Grantaire had wondered a long time while he wasn’t dead yet, why the flowers, this love unrequited hadn‘t gotten the best of him yet.

For this. He was still alive for this. He had never been meant to die alone.

“Wait.“

The soldiers turned around. Grantaire heard his own voice, “Vive la république, I am one of them.“

He couldn‘t look away from Enjolras when he stepped forward. Enjolras didn‘t look away.

Grantaire stepped closer and closer, maybe he was dragged the last steps but he didn‘t even feel the hands around his arms, he saw tears shining in Enjolras’s eyes.

“Kill us both, with one blow,“ Grantaire said to the other still in the room even though they seemed so insignificant right then, so far away. Further away then just the length of a bayonet.

Enjolras’s eyes were wide and seeing, like he was looking at Grantaire for the first time. Maybe he did. It gave him the strength to ask, “Do you permit it? Enjolras?“

He couldn‘t have asked, hadn‘t he been sure of the answer.

There should have been different emotions on Enjolras’s face, Grantaire thought, because he was about to die, more horror, more desperation.

Less surprise.

There was surprise on his face.

It made him look so young and he was. He would have been.

The surprise changed, morphed into something else, Grantaire didn‘t know what, he hadn‘t seen that expression on Enjolras‘s face like that yet. Like that, directed at him, something so soft and gentle.

He hadn‘t thought, after the night before, he would see Enjolras‘s smile again, that he had gotten the last chance to see it.

But Enjolras smiled at him, a little smile, small, still a little surprised, confused, grateful, maybe.

Grantaire thought he shouldn‘t be grateful. He was doing this as much for Enjolras as for himself.

Enjolras held out his had.

Grantaire felt like he could breathe again for the first time in years, a full, deep breath. His heart fluttered and for once, it didn‘t hurt.

He felt like crying.

He didn‘t.

He took Enjolras‘s hand and smiled back at him.

Enjolras looked at him and nodded and Grantaire breathed, he didn‘t want to hold his breath as the soldiers raised their bayonets.

Grantaire could breathe, his heart felt light in a way he had thought he couldn‘t remember, the claws and vines and roots of the flowers gentling away and he realised, on the breath that the first shot fell, that the expression he wasn‘t able to recognise on Enjolras‘s face, was wonder.

 

Wonder.

 

As long as there was still wonder in the eyes of people like Enjolras –

 

***

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Yes. France doesn‘t love Enjolras back.  
> Also, English is not my first language so I apologise for any mistakes.  
> Usually, I don‘t write things that sad, I just want to talk about beautiful, fictional french people so if you do too, stop by and say hello on [tumblr](http://vintage-jehan.tumblr.com/)


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